Islamists Call for blood as israel hammers on

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...edName=topNews

By Nidal al-Mughrabi
1/2/2009

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian Islamists vowed revenge against Israel on Friday for killing a senior Hamas leader and his family, and said all options including suicide bombs were now open to "strike at Zionist interests everywhere."

On the seventh day of an offensive aimed at stopping Hamas rockets striking southern towns, Israeli warplanes struck 20 targets and Islamist fighters fired rockets at Israel's port of Ashkelon, once again dashing international hopes of a ceasefire.

One rocket blew out windows in an apartment building. Stunned residents spilled onto the street and twisted metal window frames dangled from the building.

In Gaza City, less than 20 km to the south, a lucky few hundred foreign passport holders boarded buses in the pre-dawn murk to quit the Strip, with the help of the International Committee off the Red Cross, their governments and Israeli compliance.

"The situation is very bad. We are afraid for our children," said Ilona Hamdiya, a woman from Moldova married to a Palestinian. "We are very grateful to our embassy."

They left behind 1.5 million Palestinians unable to escape the conflict, a city waking up to another day of bombs, missiles, flickering electricity, queues for bread, tape-up windows and streets littered with broken glass and debris.

"We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity," said Hamas leader Fathi Hammad at the funeral of Nizar Rayyan, who was killed with four wives, eight children and four neighbors by an Israeli missile which hit his house on Thursday.

Spokesman Ismail Rudwan said that "following this crime, all options are now open including martyrdom operations to deter the aggression and to strike Zionist interests everywhere."

DAY OF PROTESTS
Bracing for protests and retaliatory violence a day after it killed a senior Hamas leader in an air strike on his Gaza home, Israel sealed off the occupied West Bank to deny entry to most Palestinians, and deployed heavy security at checkpoints.

A pro-Hamas website urged Palestinians to take to the streets in protest.

A statement by Hamas spokesman Ismail Rudwan said Israel's "terrorism, massacre and holocaust will not break us and will not force us to raise a white flag ... killing begets killing and destruction begets destruction."

Israeli air strikes killed two Palestinians in a house that Israel said concealed a tunnel and a weapons dump.

The death toll rose to 421 as some badly wounded succumbed to their injures. A quarter of the dead were civilians, the United Nations estimates.

Some 2,000 Palestinians have been wounded. The Gaza rockets, which have killed four Israelis in the past week, injured two people slightly in Ashkelon.

Rayyan was the highest ranking Hamas official to be killed in the current offensive. He had called loudly for suicide bombings in Israel.

Israeli armored forces remained massed on the Gaza frontier in preparation for a possible ground invasion, ignoring international calls for a halt to the conflict.

Late on Thursday, Israeli war planes bombed the Jabalya mosque. Israeli security officials said it was a meeting place and command post for Hamas militants and the large number of secondary explosions after the strike indicated that rockets, missiles and other weapons had been stored there.

Nine mosques have had been hit since it began on Saturday.

"I will pray at home. You never know, they may bomb the mosque and destroy it on our heads," said one man buying humus from a street stand. Another was defiant: "What better than to die while kneeling before God?" he said.

Analysts said Israeli leaders felt under pressure to act ahead of a February 10 national election, and surveys indicate the assaults may boost support for Barak and Livni, against frontrunner Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party.

Livni says the strikes have been effective.

"I think that even now, after a few days of operation we have achieved changes," she said on Thursday after talks in Paris with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. She rejected a proposed 48-hour respite in fighting, saying food aid was being allowed in and there was "no humanitarian crisis in the Strip."